Abstract

The dynamic coercivity of patterned media with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is measured over ten orders of magnitude using magnetic field pulses from magnetic recording heads with pulse widths in the range to . The local field generated by write heads allows the study of the switching dynamics of individual bits. Existing models have been applied for a quantitative analysis of the data. As a result, we found the written bits are stable for at least . Individual dot magnetization switching has been achieved with subnanosecond pulses showing that very-high-data-rate recording is possible in patterned media.